These barrels are popular mainly in multiplayer due to its explosive power and fairly large explosion range. A barrel will only spawn once per game (or round) in a pre-determined location. Once a barrel has exploded it will not reappear for the duration of the game (or round). They are similar to damageable vehicles in multiplayer as they both have a set amount of "health", will light on fire after a bit of damage, and eventually explode causing anyone in close proximity of the explosion to die quite easily. They normally have around the health of a player on Core settings and have an explosion with a radius of 6.25 meters. After being lit on fire, they will either explode after 10 seconds or much sooner if it continues taking damage. They will also explode instantly if damaged by the explosion of a grenade (including flashbang and concussion grenade), a second barrel, or any similar types of damage. Humorously, kills obtained by blowing these up count towards Car Bomb challenges.

In Dead Ops Arcade, these barrels will start rolling towards the player, immediately exploding upon contact or any damage.

In Black Ops, Oil Drums can be used to kill teammates without penalty in gamemodes such as Search and Destroy. While a player runs next to the barrel, a teammate merely has to shoot until the drum explodes.

In the Black Ops and Black Ops III versions of Nacht der Untoten, if all oil drums on the map are destroyed, the musical easter egg "Undone " will start playing.